# Subtitle USER-G style — ARRFLIX

The bar every fetch should hit. If a recipe step would violate any of these,
stop and ask before proceeding.

## What lands on disk

- **Exactly one** English subtitle file per episode.
- Filename: `<videobasename>.eng.srt` — no language-region tags (`en-US`),
  no flag stack on regular subs (no `.sdh`, no `.forced`, no `.cc` unless
  there genuinely is no plain-English option).
- Format: `.srt` (SubRip text). Skip `.ass`, `.ssa`, `.vtt`, `.sup`, `.idx`
  unless the source has nothing else; convert with `ffmpeg -map 0:s:0 -c:s srt`
  in that case.
- Encoding: UTF-8. Re-encode with `iconv` if a sidecar comes back as cp1252
  / windows-1250.

## What gets picked

In order:

1. **English** language — `eng` / `en`. Never auto-pick `en-US`/`en-GB`
   variants over plain `en`; treat them equivalent for matching.
2. **No SDH / Hearing Impaired** — drop any sub flagged `hearing_impaired`,
   `sdh`, `cc`. Only fall back to SDH if no plain-English option exists.
3. **No machine / AI translation** — drop `machine_translated`,
   `ai_translated`. Hand-authored subs only.
4. **No forced subtitles** — drop `foreign_parts_only` / `Forced` unless the
   episode has English audio with foreign-language scenes that need
   translation (rare for US shows).
5. **Frame-rate match** — prefer entries whose declared fps matches the
   source video (typically 23.976 for our masters). Treat `0.0` as unknown
   and fall through to step 6.
6. **Highest download count** within the surviving candidates — proxies for
   "the version everyone agreed was best."

After fetch, **eyeball-verify one sample episode per show** plays in sync
(±1 s on a known dialogue line) before declaring the show done.

## What doesn't ship

- Multiple language tracks per episode (no German/French alternatives —
  English-only library).
- Director's commentary, behind-the-scenes, song-only subs.
- Subs that cover only a partial runtime (the partial-cover heuristic isn't
  scripted yet; spot-check duration vs episode runtime if a srt looks short).
- "All-episodes-in-one" mega-packs treated as a single episode's sidecar.

## How the UI presents subs

The detail-page subtitle dropdown is shimmed via
`web-overrides/index.html` (markers `SUB-LABEL-SHIM-BEGIN/END`). Stock
Jellyfin shows e.g. `English - SUBRIP - External - Default`; the shim
collapses to `English`, with `(Forced)` / `(SDH)` / `(Hearing Impaired)`
suffixes only when those flags actually apply. `Default` is dropped — it's
redundant when there's only one stream per language.

Revert: `bin/revert-sub-label-shim.sh`.

## Why these rules

- Boutique-release-group quality bar from
  [`README.md`](../../README.md): "every show and film is the best version
  I could put together."
- One-language library = one stream per ep = no need to expose codec or
  source in UI.
- SDH/CC adds `[door slams]`, `[music]` etc. — distracting on first watch
  and not what someone reaches for unless they specifically need it.
- Machine / AI translations are inconsistent and often wrong on slang or
  show-specific terms (esp. animated comedies).
- Frame-rate-matched subs sync without manual offset on first try; mismatch
  generally still works on NTSC (29.97 vs 23.976 are the same elapsed time)
  but hash-match or fps-match removes that gamble.
